Digital media content such as pictures, music, documents, and video has become an indispensable part of people's daily lives. Due to the rapid development and wide deployment of wireless networks and wireless products, content sharing over a wireless network may become an efficient way to distribute media content. However, sharing and distribution is still not user-friendly.
Three-way calling among communication devices shares voice calls among three parties. However, the steps to initiate a three-way call are tedious and complicated. While the caller is on a two-way call using a cellular communication device, he or she may wish to invite a third party to the communication. The caller may press a three-way call button on the device and input the telephone number of the third party. Then, the second party will be placed on hold. After a connection with the third party is established, the caller can press the three-way button again to link the second party back to the communication. Generally, a device with two existing call connections cannot initiate or accept another call with a fourth party to augment the three-way communication to a four-way communication. Moreover, a service fee is required for a three-way call in a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) system. Accordingly, a caller who initiates the three-way call will be charged for two connections. Due to the cost and complications, a three-way PSTN calling scheme may not be utilized often.
An alternative technique to the above-described three-way calling technique may include a caller on an existing two-way call setting up a point-to-point Bluetooth connection in addition to the PSTN call. However, there are multiple manual steps that the caller and third party may need to perform to pair the two devices to share the call. Again, due to the complications, users may not utilize a point-to-point Bluetooth connection to add a third party to a two-way call.
Mobile communication device users may wish to share more than just voice calls. While setting up a point-to-point Bluetooth connection allows users to share some of the above-mentioned content such as calls, pictures, music, documents, and video, most users find the Bluetooth pairing process complicated and tedious plus the transfer of content difficult.